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I finally FINISHED another lot for Whimsett Cove! It feels good. :D I’ve been very off and on with my Simming lately, and when I do work on it, I jump around and don’t get much done. I had given myself a goal of getting WC to a playable state by November 1st, and it was looking like an impossibility given my lack of focus, but after finishing this lot, I’m feeling more optimistic! OK, so maybe I won’t get the whole town done in 6 weeks, but I think I can get the main core finished, and that will feel like a huge accomplishment.

This new lot is a combo lot: Dino’s Comics & Games and Dawn’s Dance World. It’s across from the village green, next to my Business lot (bank/real estate/newspaper/diner cart — which I just realized I’ve never shown here, I guess because it’s not completely finished yet *facepalm*).

The lot is owned by a husband-and-wife team Dino and Dawn Fortman — Dino (pronounced “Deen-o”) is a comic book artist and also runs the comics shop, and Dawn is a dance instructor (who also performs as an Acrobat). They have a wonderfully nerdy teenaged daughter named Alyce, who likes to cosplay as a superhero.

The houseboat trip around the island of Matkooskee continues! For this session of gameplay, I tried another of Burnt Waffles’ lighting mods — Fresh Cut Day 2.5 with St. Clair water. I think this one might be a keeper. I wasn’t sure about the auroras — there’s only a 25% chance of them, but that’s more often than I wanted them (they’re beautiful but just don’t fit in with my coastal New England-y theme), so I asked Burnt Waffles if she would mind making a version with no auroras, and she very kindly obliged! So now I’m using the Fresh Cut Day 2.5 with St. Clair water and NO chance of auroras. *happy dance*

But I’m getting ahead of myself! Back to the auroras days and the Mortinez boys (and Betsy) on their little trip…

Last we left them, they had just visited the lighthouse on the southern side of the island and spent their second night on the houseboat. As the sun rose the next day, Lucas got his first skill point in fishing!

Shortly thereafter, he got his first point again. Wait, what? I checked his Skills, and he had NO points in fishing, even though I had received notification that he had gotten the first point…twice. Hrmm! Curious! Just one of the weird glitches I’ve been experiencing since the patch and IP. I have minimal mods in — even with Twallan’s I have it pared down to just MC, SP, Decensor, Register, Overwatch, and Error Trap, so I’m not sure what’s going on.

Well, the new Island Paradise Expansion was released last Tuesday, and I’ve been having a great time exploring the new features in the pack — mainly the BOATS! I gotta say, being able to take my Sims out boating on the open water is one of those things I never knew I wanted in my game, but now that I have it, I love it! There’s so much variety in types of boats – rowboats, sailboats, aqua sleds, speedboats, pedalboats, and of course the houseboats. The first time I heard about the houseboats, I imagined good old Uncle Elvis owning one and taking it out to sea for fishing trips. So naturally, Uncle E., along with his son Lucas, was my first Sim in Whimsett Cove sail the seas.

First I wanted to try building a port (mainly as a place for his houseboat to dock), so following SimGuruSemedi’s tutorial, I built one along Timberline Beach (where Uncle Elvis and the Theater Trio live).

It’s a pretty simple pier, with a gangway for a houseboat and then some other boats (rowboats, sailboats, and a pedalboat).

This multi-purpose lot is owned by the Theater Trio: Jeromy Stearns, Paolo Gil, and Shannon Milbrandt. It is comprised of the Edgecombe Theatre (a small town playhouse), an art shop/studio called Art Happens, and the Backdrop Coffee Shop, where visitors can grab a cup of coffee or a bite to eat. The coffee shop also has local art on display which patrons can buy if they wish.

This rustic-modern beach house is where friends and business partners Jeromy Stearns, Paolo Gil, and Shannon Milbrandt (introduced here) live. And since all their names are a bit much to type every time, I’ll just call them the “Theater Trio” from now on. ;-)

I’m introducing this next Whimsett Cove household a bit differently; I wanted to take more formal portraits, and since these next Sims are all a bit artsy-fartsy and fashionable, it fits with their style. :-D

First off, we have Jeromy Stearns:

Jeromy comes from one of the wealthiest families in Whimsett Cove, and great things were expected of him when he went off to college, but his heart just wasn’t in some grand profession like medicine or the law. His passion was the theater — acting, directing, and writing plays.

Just a little map of what Whimsett Cove looked like in February, which I thought I’d better post before March is over! ;-p Lots #2 and 9 are finished but haven’t been posted here on the blog yet. If I did this map today, I’d also have a lot near the town green marked for the bank/real estate agency/newspaper office and another lot off in the far upper right corner for a work-in-progress residence.

Residences: 10
Community Lots: 15
Empty Lots that I don’t know what to do with yet: too many to count!

Plans:

Manketta Island - My tentative plan is to make this a swanky area for moneyed tourists and residents — if there’s space, it’ll have an upscale inn/B&B, a fancy French/traditional restaurant, and a country club/park. Although I might end up putting some or all of that in another area, depending on space.

University Campus - The new University Life Expansion Pack is full of cool build/buy items, but we can’t replicate the full gameplay in our homeworlds, so I plan on building my own university and “faking it”, probably with custom careers and Margaret Pendragon’s University Life rabbithole rugs. I did delete the airport/landing strip and place the UL rabbitholes themselves to see how they would look, but they are framming HUGE! and dwarf everything else on the island. So I look forward to creating my own little campus buildings! I’m going to aim for a Tudor Revival/Gothic feel in that area.

I have about six half-finished lots right now, so my goal is to finish those and then try to focus on the “downtown” part of the island. It still looks so empty! And I’d like to get around to PLAYING one of these days! ;)